Understanding CSR Campaigns Through the Lens of Culture Values and Moral Emotion

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the persuasive influences of moral emotions on younger consumers’ judgments and decision-making and the roles of culture and self-construal in processing corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns. This study employed a between-subjects experiment where American and Chinese participants viewed one of the two CSR advertisement campaigns designed with ego-focused (e.g., an advertisement elicited anger emotion) and other-focused appeals (e.g., an advertisement elicited guilt emotion). By employing an elaboration likelihood persuasion model (ELM), the results indicated that negative moral emotions had significant positive influences on attitudes toward the advertisements and purchase intention through the peripheral route. In addition, results revealed the interaction effects between guilt emotion and cultural values (i.e., country) on attitudes. This study also highlighted the moderating role of self-construal individual values in the relationship between guilt and attitudes toward the campaign. This research provides insights for communication practitioners on designing effective CSR campaigns to reach culturally diverse target audiences.

Keywords

Corporate social responsibility (CSR)CSR campaigns culture values moral emotion ELM

In the past few decades, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a buzzword in the business world. This shift of focus, in part, is driven by the fact that more and more global consumers believe that corporations need to bear more ethical and social responsibility for solving global problems like human disease and environmental issues (Lee et al., 2020). CSR can be defined as the reputation and activities corporations pursue to fulfil societal obligations (Diehl et al., 2016). Those activities include philanthropy contributions, socially responsible labour management and environmentally responsible manufacturing processes (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2004). The benefits of engaging in CSR activities for corporations include enhancing consumers’ satisfaction and positive evaluations (e.g., Lii et al., 2013), forming positive attitudes toward brand and corporations (e.g., Bhattacharya & Sen, 2004), and increasing purchase intentions and positive word of mouth (e.g., Lee & Kim, 2017).

In response to this increasing demand for CSR practice among consumers, corporations have begun to take a proactive stance to incorporate and showcase CSR initiatives in their businesses (Kim et al., 2014). For example, the footwear and apparel company Allbirds ‘Meet Your Shoes’ campaign integrated digital films, streaming audio and social media to promote their sustainability efforts by utilizing natural and recycled materials for their shoes (O’Brien, 2018). Such practices also highlighted the importance of CSR campaigns on social media in the digital age, as this campaign has generated over 7.5 million views on YouTube. More recently, Allbirds launched a global advertising campaign to reach culturally diverse consumers for their first running shoe made sustainably with natural materials (AdAge, 2020).

With the rise of digital and social media technologies, many global enterprises use online CSR campaigns to advocate social causes and engage consumers (Lee et al., 2020). However, designing effective CSR campaign messages to reach larger international audiences remains unclear. Thus, it becomes vital for researchers and practitioners to understand what psychological factors drive culturally diverse consumers to support CSR campaigns and what campaign message strategies can work in an intercultural context.

In ethical decision-making, previous studies have found that moral emotion plays an important role in socially responsible consumption behaviours (e.g., Chen & Moosmayer, 2020; Coleman et al., 2020; Greenbaum et al., 2020; Xu, 2017). Prior research also has suggested that diverse cultural values may affect an individual’s ability to appraise ego- and other-focused moral emotions and ultimately influence their behavioral intentions (Kim & Johnson, 2013). However, how the two types of moral emotion influence the cognitive process and propel culturally diverse consumers to respond to CSR campaign messages is a question that still needs to be answered (Greenbaum et al., 2020).

This study, therefore, examines how consumers’ cultural values affect their affective and cognitive reactions in processing CSR campaign messages from national (Western and East Asian countries) and individual levels (i.e., self-construal). In addition, this study utilised the elaboration likelihood persuasion model (ELM) to examine further the psychological processes behind the influence of cultural differences on consumer evaluations of CSR campaign messages (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).

Hence, online experiments were employed among culturally diverse samples (e.g., young Americans and Chinese). As cultural differences can affect emotional experiences on ego- and other-focused moral emotions, this study investigates the impacts of two types of CSR advertisement campaigns on social networks: (a) ego-focused emotional appeal (e.g., an ad-elicited anger emotion) and (b) other-focused emotional appeal (e.g., an ad-elicited guilt emotion). This study provides an in-depth understanding of the combined effects of cultural orientation and moral emotions on individuals’ attitudes and purchase intentions in the digital age and how different negative moral emotions elicited by the campaigns can affect attitudinal formation from a persuasion perspective.

Theoretical Framework

Examining CSR Campaigns in a Cross-Cultural Context

While some recent studies have examined the topic of CSR communication in the intercultural context (e.g., Bae, 2017; Diehl et al., 2016; Lee & Haley, 2019), it is still unclear how global consumers (i.e., consumers from Western and East Asian countries) process CSR campaign messages based on their culture values and emotional responses. While economic globalisation has caused Western and Asian countries to become more connected, differences in cultural values and communication styles are crucial factors to consider when developing effective message strategies concerning CSR activities (Lim et al., 2018). For example, Taylor (2014) postulated that the heterogeneity of stakeholder norms in the global market made it more difficult and complicated for multinational corporations to display conformity to the stakeholder norms while practicing their CSR. Likewise, Bae (2017) argued that people with different cultural backgrounds internalised social ideology diversely, and therefore they tend to evaluate CSR information differently based on their values. Hence, practitioners and researchers have called for more CSR communication studies emphasizing cross-cultural issues (Diehl et al., 2016; Lee & Haley, 2019; Lim et al., 2018; Taylor, 2014).

Among a wide array of cultural frameworks, Hofstede (1980)’s cultural dimension model has been used to examine CSR campaign appeals in cross-country research (e.g., Bae, 2017; Lee & Haley, 2019). Specifically, the individualism/collectivism dimension describes the relations between self and the surrounding social context in varied cultures, which is linked to the psychological concept of self- construal in assessing cultural differences (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Singelis and Sharkey (1995, p. 624) proposed the concept of self-construal, which refers to ‘constellation of thought, feelings, and actions concerning of the self to others and the self as distinct from other relations’. Individualistic cultures emphasise the individual’s autonomy over others and then foster the independent construal of self, whereas collectivistic cultures focus on building relations with others and, in turn, form the interdependent construal of self (Aaker & Williams, 1998).

Cultural differences in self-construal affect the way how people think, perceive, and feel about themselves and society, and mirror different life goals within cultures such as attaining personal success or maintaining a harmonious relationship (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Thus, self-construal variables could be applied to understand cultural differences in affective responses and cognitive processes (Gardner et al., 1999) from an individual level. Notably, self-construal has been widely used to assess individuals’ cultural differences in moral consumption situations, like purchasing the cause-related product and charitable behaviours (e.g., Xu, 2017; Yang & Yen, 2018). In addition, distinct self-construal patterns may result in different moral affective experiences, and degrees of accessibility of moral emotions can have striking differences in ethical decision-making behaviours (Kitayama et al., 2006; Singh et al., 2018).

Emotion and Information Processing

As Nabi (1999, p. 295) summarised, emotions are characterised as the ‘internal, mental states representing evaluative, valenced reactions to events, agents, or objects that vary in intensity’. Prior literature in discrete emotion and persuasion argued that emotions can guide information processing, influence the ability to recall information and in turn influence judgments and behaviours (Lazarus, 1991; Nabi, 1999). As Nabi (1999) argued, emotion could be elicited by the advertisement message itself and related to the subject of the message, and in turn, these ad-induced emotions can drive motivation or affect an individual’s capability to process the message. Specifically, discrete negative emotions (e.g., anger and guilt) are linked to complex appraisal patterns and thus lead to unique adaptive functions (Lazarus, 1991).

One of the notable theoretical frameworks that explain the complex relations between emotion and cognition is the ELM of persuasion (Petty & Briñol, 2015; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). The ELM explains how the diverse source, message, receiver and context factors form and change people’s attitudes through central and peripheral routes: individuals with higher motivation and ability process information using the central route (high-elaboration mode), whereas an individual with lower motivation and ability processes information via the peripheral route (low-elaboration mode) (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). In ELM, Petty and Briñol (2015) argue that emotional responses typically correspond to the category of peripheral cues that solely occur in the low-elaboration-likelihood situation, which are consistent with the emotional valence in the stimuli. In such a situation, people will invest little cognitive effort and rely on peripheral cues while processing information. Further, Petty and Briñol (2015) have expanded the ELM by proposing that emotions may influence attitudes by providing persuasive arguments, biasing the cognitive thinking of the information or validating existing thoughts in high elaboration mode.

Moral Emotions and Cultural Differences

Moral emotions are crucial in understanding individuals’ complex ethical behaviours, as these moral emotions offer the motivational power and reasons for people to engage in good behaviours that adhere to their moral standards or avoid acting in unethical ways (Tangney et al., 2007). In cross-cultural contexts, Markus and Kitayama (1991) identified two types of moral emotions (i.e., ego-focused vs. other-focused) that vary based on the extent of fostering the independent self or dependent self. This distinction reflects cultural differences in experiencing moral emotions (Kitayama et al., 2006). Ego-focused emotions like pride and anger connect to an individual’s internal state and sense of independence, reflecting the individual’s unique experiences and thoughts. Other-focused emotions such as empathy and guilt, in contrast, are associated with relationships with others in the surrounding social context, denoting the sense of dependency and social harmony (Aaker & Williams, 1998).

Focusing on the advertisement elicited moral emotions, researchers have found that anger can trigger immediate actions in response to an unethical situation caused by others like retaliation (Greenbaum et al., 2020) and punitive actions (Xie et al., 2015). In contrast with anger, guilt is a self-conscious emotion associated with feelings of remorse and regret for one’s own actions (Rees et al., 2015). As such, research has found that guilt is positively associated with ethical consumption behaviours (e.g., Coleman et al., 2020) and pro-environmental consumer behaviours (e.g., Rees et al., 2015).

Previous research showed that when the emotional appeal of the message matches the audience’s cultural values (e.g., other-focused emotion and collectivistic culture), individuals can recognise these emotions easily and have more cognitive capabilities to process the information. As a result, they can give emotional significance to the stimulus (Aaker & Williams, 1998). For example, Kim and Johnson (2013) found that ego-focused emotion (e.g., pride) had a stronger impact on US consumers’ purchase intention for socially responsible products compared with Korean consumers. However, the interaction effects only occur in specific moral emotions (e.g., pride and guilt). Likewise, Xu (2017) examined culturally matching effects between self-construal and moral emotions. The findings revealed that highly interdependent favoured other-focused emotional appeals (i.e., empathy), whereas highly independent preferred ego-focused emotional appeals (i.e., pride). In contrast, negative emotional appeals (anger vs. guilt) did not interact with self-construal. The inconclusive matching effects between cultural values and moral emotions warrant future investigation of if there are additional contingency variables in the model.

The Role of Involvement and Matching Effects in CSR Information Processing

Researchers have employed the ELM to investigate how CSR campaign information is processed and found that an individual’s involvement with the advertisement messages (i.e., perceived relevance to the social cause) affects the amount of cognitive effort the individual needs for both motivation and the ability to process the CSR information (Bae, 2017; Bögel, 2015). For example, Bae (2017) found that individuals who perceived the social cause in the campaign is highly relevant to them would spend more cognitive efforts to process the information, resulting in greater visual attention than those less involved individuals. The findings implied that involvement can be included as a moderator in the information processing model.

In ELM, matching emotions to contexts (e.g., messages to the audience) can affect attitudes by validating people’s thoughts (Petty & Briñol, 2015). Specifically, when matching effects occurred in the high-thinking condition, people assessed the message-induced emotions thoroughly and gained more thought confidence, and the thought confidence can subsequently mediate the influences of emotions on attitudes. Thought confidence requires certain cognitive efforts because people need motivation and the ability (i.e., involvement) to think and assess their thoughts (Petty et al., 2007). However, the matching effect between messages and emotions serves as simple cue in the low-thinking mode, and the mediation pattern does not occur in low-thinking mode (Petty & Briñol, 2015).

Given the discussion, the current study attempts to test the interactions between cultural orientation and moral emotions, as well as examine the moderating role of involvement and the mediating role of thought confidence in CSR information processing. The following hypotheses were therefore proposed:

H₁: American participants will (a) express more favourable attitudes toward the advertisement and (b) have higher levels of purchase intention compared to Chinese participants after being exposed to the CSR advertisement designed to evoke ego-focused emotion.

H₂: Chinese participants will (a) express more favourable attitudes toward the advertisement and (b) have higher levels of purchase intention than American participants after being exposed to the CSR advertisement designed to evoke other-focused emotion.

H₃: The ego-focused advertisement appeal will be more effective in increasing (a) favourable attitudes toward the advertisement and (b) purchase intentions among higher-independent participants.

H₄: The other-focused advertisement appeal will be more effective in increasing (a) favourable attitudes toward the advertisement and (b) purchase intentions among higher-interdependent participants.

H₅: (a) Highly involved participants in the emotional congruence CSR campaign condition will have more thought confidence to process the information than those low involved with the social cause, and (b) the thought confidence will mediate the matching effects of moral emotions and cultural values on both attitudes and purchase intention.

Methodology

Pretest

Before the main experiment, a pretest was conducted to test the stimulus materials. The primary goals for the pretest were (a) to test the message design and confirm the social causes and (b) to examine whether the CSR campaigns depicting different emotional appeals can evoke the expected moral emotions. A convenience sample of 70 college students from the United States and China participated the pretest. In the pretest sample, the number of United States participants was 50, and the number of Chinese participants was 20, 42.9% (n = 30) were male and 57.1% (n = 40) were female, and the mean age of the participants was 22.81 years (SD = 4.72).

Selection of Social Issues

As environmental protection has been an essential topic for CSR-related issues (Lin & Hsu, 2013), this study created a fictional CSR campaign advocating ocean protection sponsored by an apparel corporation. The CSR campaign messages were designed with four moral, and emotional appeals (ego-focused: anger and pride; other-focused: guilt and empathy). In addition, research has demonstrated that a high perceived fit between the CSR cause and the company can produce more positive responses (Becker-Olsen et al., 2006). Global consumers have raised concerns about sustainability issues in the fashion industry (Lee et al., 2020). Further, the US and China produced the highest and second highest coastal plastic waste globally (Law et al., 2020). This study thus chose an apparel company advocating environmental issues in CSR campaigns in both US and China because the fashion industry is a significant contributor to environmental problems (e.g., carbon emissions). The advertisements’ texts were modified from Xu’s research (2017) examining charity advertisements featuring different moral and emotional appeals.

Overall, the pretest results suggested that advertisements with an ego-focused appeal (e.g., anger) and other-focused appeal (e.g., guilt) were successful in evoking the designated emotions (see Table 1 for detailed results of the pretest). By contrast, both the pride appeal and empathy advertisements were not successful in triggering intended emotional feelings. Thus, the main study used two types of negative emotional appeals (anger vs. guilt) for the main experiments (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics and the Pre-Test Results of the ANOVA Tests.

Elicited Emotion	Anger Appeal	Pride Appeal	Guilt Appeal	Empathy Appeal	F	ω²
Elicited Emotion	Mean	Mean	Mean	Mean	F	ω²
Anger	3.66	2.56***	2.85*	3.53**	9.45***	0.41
Pride	1.35***	2.31	1.40***	1.41***	13.56***	0.30
Guilt	2.92*	2.31***	3.36	3.03*	7.37**	0.19
Empathy	2.31**	2.58	2.67*	2.94	3.98	0.16
F	52.87***	0.34	28.56***	42.46
ω ²	0.62	0.01	0.47	0.67

Source: The author.

Notes: * p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

Main Experiment

In the main study, a 2 (culture: America vs. China) × 2 (type of emotional appeal: ego-focused vs. other-focused) between-subjects online experiment was employed. Both American and Chinese participants were randomly assigned to one of the two moral emotional appeal conditions. US and Chinese participants were first asked to complete a form with a series of questions about their self-construal values and cultural orientation for measuring their individual differences in individualism-collectivism cultural values. Immediately following the pre-exposure survey, participants reviewed an advertisement using their native language from a fictitious company crafted either in an ego-focused emotional appeal (anger) or other-focused emotional appeal (guilt). There is an instruction and timer on the advertisement page that allowed participants to proceed the page after at least 10 seconds.

After viewing the stimuli, the participants responded to attention check questions, as well as some questions measuring their levels of cause involvement, thought confidence, attitudes toward the brand, purchase intentions and demographics.

Sample

The respondent sample includes college students enrolled at a major Northwestern University in the US and college students enrolled at two national universities in China participated in the study in 2019. Participants in the US and China received course extra credit for participating in the study.

Cortese (2003) suggested that college students at higher education institutions can participate in environmental activism through a variety of activities (e.g., environmental research). Additionally, researchers have argued that a student sample is appropriate for comparing the difference in attitudes and beliefs in cross-cultural studies (Bello et al., 2009). Thus, college students cannot be neglected in studying cross-cultural CSR communication.

The result from power analysis using G*Power 3.1 suggested that the required total sample size of the proposed model in this study is 176 (Faul et al., 2009). Thus, 262 college students were recruited for the main experiment (separate from the pretest): 142 in the United States and 120 in China. After examination of the data, incomplete answers (e.g., missing data occurred on dependent variables) or repeated answers (e.g., straight liners) were excluded from the analysis, leaving the final sample to have 225 participants (135 in the US and 90 in China). Of the 225 participants, 65.8% were female, 34.2% were male, and their average age was 22.91 (SD = 4.97), ranging from 18 to 37 years old. The mean age of the participants was 20.46 years for the US sample and 24 years for the Chinese sample. Regarding their college year of education, 21.2% are freshmen, 16.7 % are sophomores, 23% are juniors, 18% are seniors and 21.2% are graduate students.

Stimulus Materials

Based on the results from the pretest, the main experiment employed two versions of CSR campaign advertisements for a fictitious shoe brand using either anger or guilt appeal in Chinese and English, respectively.

Two colour Instagram advertisements for helping oceans and marine animals from plastic pollution with the fictitious sponsored brand, AB, depicted one plastic bottle in the ocean and provided one short paragraph of information on the social cause in either anger appeal or guilt appeal.¹ The message on anger advertisements focused on eliciting anger emotion, whereas the guilt appeal focused on evoking guilt emotion (See Appendix for the advertisements copy). At the ends of the paragraphs, both messages used the same text: ‘This World Oceans Day, let’s fight plastic pollution with AB Shoes’.

To make sure the equivalence of the materials, the first version of the four advertisements was produced in English, and a bilingual Chinese-native speaker translated the advertisement message from English to Chinese. The brand logo, brand information, headline and background were held consistent except for the advertising message.

Measures

Independent and Moderate Variables

Country

The national level cultures were compared using country/nationality (i.e., the United States vs. China) (Kim & Johnson, 2013). This study selected the two countries for cultural comparison based on several criteria. First, using two culturally diverse countries aims to test the impacts of different emotional advertisement appeals on consumers’ responses in countries belonging to different cultures. The United States represents an individualistic culture, and China represents a collectivistic culture (De Mooij & Hofstede, 2010). Furthermore, the United States is an important market for studying CSR because CSR has been part of business practices for a long time in the United States (Diehl et al., 2016). Since globalisation drove the CSR movement in China, many corporations in China have begun to engage in CSR activities and incorporate them into their long-term strategic management plan (Tian et al., 2011).

To avoid the potential confounding effects, this study also used the measure from Hofstede (2001) to assess participants’ cultural orientation (collectivism-individualism) on a 7-point scale with six items (M = 3.97, SD = 1.12, α = 0.85).

Self-Construal

The self-construal construct includes two dimensions: independent and interdependent (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). The self-construal variable was used to assess an individual’s cultural values. This study adopted the measure from Gudykunst et al. (1996): six items for measuring independent self-construal levels (M = 5.75, SD = 0.92, α = 0.86), and six for measuring interdependent self-construal levels (M = 4.98, SD = 0.90, α = 0.81).

Cause Involvement

This study adopted the 5-item scale from Grau and Folse (2007) to measure perceived social-cause involvement on a 7-point scale. Participants were asked to what extent the social cause in the advertisement campaign ‘is unimportant/important to me, is personally relevant/irrelevant to me, means nothing to me/means a lot to me, does not/does matter a great deal to me, and is of no/is of great concern to me’. (M = 4.68, SD = 1.44, α = 0.84).

Moral Emotions

To assess moral emotions, this study adapted the multiple-item measures from Xu (2017). The two moral emotions (anger and guilt) were measured using three 5-point anchored rating scales. For example, the emotion of anger was evaluated using three items including frustrated, angry and irritated. Guilt was measured using repentant, guilty, blameworthy items. Three items in each moral emotion were computed into a mean index. The advertisement featuring self-focused (i.e., anger) appeal elicited the anger emotion (M = 3.22, SD = 1.09, α = 0.89). The advertisement containing other-focused appeal (i.e., guilt) evoked the guilt emotion (M = 2.83, SD = 0.99, α = 0.81).

Dependent and Mediator Variables

Thought Confidence

After viewing the campaign message, participants were asked to list the thoughts that went through their minds when they were reading the advertisement message. After writing their thoughts, participants were asked to recall the thoughts they wrote about the advertisement message and to indicate their confidence in those thoughts. Confidence was measured using a 7-point semantic differential scale from Briñol et al. (2007), M = 5.65, SD = 1.14.

Attitudes Toward the Advertisement

This study used Lee and Kim (2019)’s measure to measure participants’ attitudes toward the advertisement. This scale included four items placed on a 7-point scale: ‘I like the advertisement I saw, the advertisement that I saw is appealing to me, the advertisement that I saw is attractive to me, the advertisement that I saw is interesting to me’. (M = 3.78, SD = 1.46, α = 0.89).

Purchase Intention

Purchase intention was assessed using four items adapted from MacKenzie et al. (1986) on a 7-point scale. Sample items consisted of: ‘I am likely to purchase the product produced by AB company’, and ‘I would consider purchasing the product produced by AB company’. (M = 3.70, SD = 1.39, α = 0.94).

Results

To test the hypotheses, the Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was performed. In addition, Hayes’s (2017) PROCESS model 1 and model 11 with 5,000 bootstrap samples and the Johnson–Neyman technique were used for data analyses (Preacher et al., 2007). The demographics variables were entered as the covariance in these analyses.

In order to respond to H1, the Univariate analysis was employed and the result demonstrated a non-significant interaction effect between culture and anger emotion on attitudes toward the CSR advertisement (F (1, 102) = 0.62, p = 0.43, η² = 0.006) and purchase intention (F (1, 102) = 1.07, p = 0.30, η² = 0.010). In addition, the results revealed a significant main effect of the anger emotion on attitude (F (1, 102) = 9.50, p = 0.003, η² = 0.085) and purchase intention (F (1, 102) = 13.39, p = 0.000, η² = 0.116). The results suggest that participants were more likely to favor the CSR advertisement and have higher levels of purchase intention when they are associated with greater anger emotions after being exposed to the anger appeal advertisement. Also, the influence of ego-focused emotion (e.g., anger) on US and Chinese’ participants’ attitudes and purchase intention did not vary based on their cultures. Thus, H1 was not supported.

As H2a predicted, the univariate result showed a significant interaction effect between culture (US coded as 1 and China coded as 2) and guilt emotion on attitudes toward the CSR advertisement (F (1, 102) = 5.13, p = 0.026, η² = 0.048). However, the interaction between culture and guilt emotion on purchase intention was not significant (F (1, 102) = 0.36, p = 0.549, η² = 0.004). The results revealed significant main effects of the guilt emotion (F (1, 102) = 15.64, p = 0.000, η² = 0.133), and culture on attitudes (F (1, 102) = 6.76, p = 0.011, η² = 0.062). The main effects of guilt emotion (F (1, 102) = 10.74, p = 0.001, η² = 0.095), and gender on purchase intention (F (1, 102) = 8.63, p = 0.004, η² = 0.078) were also found. The main effects suggested the guilt positively predicted attitudes toward the advertisement and purchase intention. In addition, US participants (M = 4.03) were more likely to favor the advertisement as compared to Chinese participants (M = 3.43) when they exposed to the guilt appeal advertisement.

To further understand the nature of the interaction, Hayes’s PROCESS model 1 was performed on the dependent measure of attitudes. The whole model was significant (F (7, 102) = 5.37, R² = 0.27, p < 0. 001), and the interaction between culture and guilt emotion was significant (B = 0.60, SE = 0.26, 95% CI [0.07, 1.12]). This moderation model was further explored via the Johnson–Neyman technique. Specifically, the Johnson–Neyman region can be seen for lower levels of guilt emotion (≤2.43) in which attitudes toward the advertisement are significantly higher for the US participants than the Chinese participants, B = −0.38, SE = 0.19, 95% CI [0.00, 0.76]) (See Figure 1). In addition, the bias-corrected bootstrap CIs do not overlap with zero. However, as the feelings of guilt increased, the interaction effect began to flip as the trend displayed the opposite direction. In other words, the strength of guilt emotion played an important role in affecting Chinese participants’ attitudinal responses. The results suggested that American participants were more likely to favour the CSR advertisement featuring guilt appeal than the Chinese participants when they experienced lower and moderate levels of guilt feelings. In contrast, Chinese participants were more likely to express more positive attitudes when they associated with higher feelings of guilt. Furthermore, the same interaction effect pattern between culture and guilt emotion was not found on purchase intention (B = 0.15, SE = 0.26, 95% CI [−0.35, 0.66]) (See Table 2).

Figure 1.

Source: The author.

Table 2.

Summary of Main Effects and Interaction Effects Between Culture and Guilt Emotion.

Attitudes	B (SE)	β	Purchase Intentions
Attitudes	B (SE)	β	B (SE)		β
Main effects
Country Guilt	−0.831* (0.362) 0.566*** (0.136)	−0.283* 0.395***	0.060 (0.335) 0.435** (0.129)		0.021 0.316**
Moderation test
Country Guilt Country × Guilt	−2.120* (0.815) −0.369 (0.434) 0.599* (0.265)	−0.722* −0.257 0.737*	−0.075 (0.792) −0.194 (0.421) 0.155 (0.257)		−0.026 0.141 0.198
Model R²	0.269***			0.255

Source: The author.

Note: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.

To test the H3, Hayes’s PROCESS model 1 was employed, and the results revealed a non-significant interaction between anger emotion and independents (B = 0.06, SE = 0.17, 95% CI [−0.27, 0.40]). Similarly, the results on purchase intention were not significant (B = 0.10, SE = 0.16, 95% CI [−0.21, 0.41]). Thus, H3a and H3b were not supported.

In order to respond to H4, Hayes’s PROCESS was conducted and results revealed a significant result for the whole model (F (8, 101) = 4.27, R² = 0.27, p < 0.001) and a marginally significant interaction effect between guilt and interdependent self-construal (B = −0.27, SE = 0.14, 95% CI [−0.56, 0.02]). As shown in the significant Johnson–Neyman region, when participants’ interdependent values were below 5.90 (B = 0.38, SE = 0.19, 95% CI [0.00, 0.76]), the positive interaction between guilt emotion and interdependent self-construal was significant, whereas the interaction effect was not significant when the interdependent values were above 5.90, partially supporting H4a (See Figure 2). When guilt emotion was at low and moderate levels, subjects with higher interdependence were more likely to favor the CSR advertisement featuring guilt appeal. As the feelings of guilt were very high, the positive impact of guilt on attitudes was weaker for subjects with higher interdependence. However, the interaction between interdependent values and guilt emotion on purchase intention was not significant (B = 0.004, SE = 0.14, 95% CI [−0.27, 0.28]). Hence, H4b was not supported (See Table 3).

Figure 2.

Source: The author.

Table 3.

Summary of Main Effects and Interaction Effects Between Interdependent Self-Construal and Guilt Emotion.

Attitudes	B (SE)	β	Purchase Intentions
Attitudes	B (SE)	β	B (SE)	β
Main effects
Interdependent Guilt	0.368* (0.168) 0.605*** (0.138)	0.243* 0.422***	0.205 (0.152) 0.414** (0.130)	0.140 0.300**
Moderation test
Interdependent Guilt Interdependent × Guilt	1.02* (0.459) 1.960* (0.735) −0.268 (0.145)	0.669* 1.354* −1.149 (p = 0.067)	0.045 (0.455) 0.400 (0.706) 0.004 (0.139)	0.062 0.286 0.018
Model R²	0.253***		0.254***

Source: The author.

Note: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.

To test H5, the conditional process moderated mediation model was tested via Hayes’s PROCESS model 11 on outcome variables. Regarding anger advertisements, the results showed that the moderated mediation models (anger × country × cause involvement) were not statistically significant on attitudes (B = 0.004, SE = 0.03, 95% CI [−0.03, 0.11]) or purchase intention (B = 0.01, SE = 0.03, 95% CI [−0.03, 0.12]). Similarly, the results suggested the models (anger × self-construal × cause involvement) were not significant on attitudes (B = 0.004, SE = 0.02, 95% CI [−0.02, 0.08]) and purchase intention (B = 0.006, SE = 0.02, 95% CI [−0.02, 0.08]).

The results also showed that the moderated mediation models (guilt emotion × country × cause involvement) were not statistically significant on attitudes (B = −0.002, SE = 0.05, 95% CI [−0.12, 0.10]) or purchase intention (B = 0.00, SE = 0.03, 95% CI [−0.05, 0.07]) for the bootstrap CIs that were zero. In regard to the emotional congruence condition on self-construal levels, the results suggested the models were not significant on attitudes (B = 0.01, SE = 0.03, 95% CI [−0.04, 0.07]) and purchase intention (B = 0.004, SE = 0.02, 95% CI [−0.02, 0.06]). These analyses indicated that thought confidence did not mediate the positive impacts of guilt emotion on attitudes and purchase intention. Thus, H5 was not supported.

Discussion

In the context of CSR communication, this study examined the persuasive influences of elicited moral emotions on individuals’ judgments and decision-making and the roles of culture and self-construal in regard to the differential attitudinal responses to CSR campaigns either elicited ego-focused or other-focused moral emotions.

The first main finding was consistent with prior studies that ad-elicited emotions can catch attention, influence information processing and lead to attitude formation and behavioral intentions (Jeon et al., 2022; Lazarus, 1991; Nabi, 1999; Poels & Dewitte, 2019; Wu & Wen, 2019). This study also extends previous literature by confirming that moral emotions (e.g., anger and guilt) positively influence consumers’ attitudinal responses and behavioral intentions toward corporations’ environmental CSR initiatives (e.g., Jiménez & Yang, 2008; Xu, 2017).

Importantly, building upon ELM literature in persuasion (Petty & Briñol, 2015), this study found that the ad-induced emotions affected attitude formation through the peripheral route because the negative affective responses showed simple cue effects on judgments without influencing the validation of the thoughts. The non-significant moderated mediation results echoed prior studies (e.g., Greenbaum et al., 2020; Greifeneder et al., 2011; Nabi et al., 2018; Petty & Briñol, 2015) by showing that emotions had direct influences on attitudes and actions unmediated by thoughts in persuasion. This finding suggested that moral emotions can drive consumers to respond to CSR messages quickly without undergoing a complex cognitive reasoning process (e.g., Greenbaum et al., 2020).

Furthermore, the results suggest that it is helpful to use negative emotional appeals in environmental CSR campaigns to achieve stronger persuasive effects. Specifically, the negative emotional appeals (e.g., guilt, anger) effectively evoked participants’ moral emotions and predicted their relational emotional responses (Renner et al., 2013). The findings also supported Nabi’s (1999) arguments that negative emotions stimulate undesirable situations that motivate individuals to address the negative affective feelings and form their opinions.

The culture was found to be important in influencing the effectiveness of CSR campaigns in terms of attitudes toward the advertisement. The results revealed that US younger consumers were more likely to favor the other-focused emotional appeal advertisement (e.g., guilt) than their Chinese counterparts. This finding is consistent with Kim and Johnson (2013) that people from collectivistic cultures were more responsive to other-focused emotions and were more likely to support the prosocial products than people from individualistic cultures. Interestingly, this study reveals a cultural value shift in a new era, as the US participants in the current sample were more collectivistic oriented than the Chinese participants. These findings support Leung (2008)’s conclusion that Chinese younger people’s desires for interdependence decreased because of the social welfare and economic development in China. Thus, the Chinese younger generation in wealthier areas (e.g., Beijing) has acted in a more individualistic manner, supporting the current study’s Chinese subjects’ characteristics.

Another interesting finding is that US participants were more likely to support the guilt appeal CSR campaign advertisement while experiencing low and moderate levels of guilt emotion versus Chinese participants. However, the positive effect of guilt emotion on attitudes was more prominent among Chinese participants when Chinese participants felt stronger guilt emotions. One of the plausible explanations is that the strength of ad-elicited guilt emotion played an important role in the moderation effect, as the Chinese young consumers began to express more positive attitudes toward the advertisement with a palatable level of the guilt emotion. For practitioners, it is important to persuade less collectivistic-oriented young people in China using a strong strength of guilt appeal in order to generate the strongest guilt emotional responses. This finding can also be explained by Aaker and Williams (1998) that other-focused emotion can be more effective in persuading individuals from individualist culture when they experienced the feelings privately and access some aspects of the interdependent self without diminishing of the individual self.

In line with previous research (e.g., Xu, 2017), other-focused moral emotions were more persuasive to consumers with higher interdependent values versus lower interdependent values. Also, low and moderate-level guilt emotions appear to be capable of increasing the favourable attitudes toward the CSR campaign messages among higher interdependent individuals.

Moreover, interaction effects only existed in the guilt appeal condition. Thus, the guilt emotion seems more useful in communicating to younger consumers in diverse cultures in the environmental CSR communication context (e.g., Rees et al., 2015). Although many advertising and marketing communication studies examined the guilt appeal (Renner et al., 2013), few researchers have studied the guilt appeal and felt guilt emotion in information processing and attitude formation. Therefore, this study provided insights for measuring felt emotional responses toward CSR advertisements and specific moral emotions’ impacts on persuasion across cultures.

Practical Implications

Several practical implications stem from this research for developing effective advertising strategies concerning CSR activities. First, ad-induced negative moral emotions (i.e., anger and guilt) were powerful in terms of influencing younger consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions towards environmental CSR campaigns. Communication practitioners should consider increasing the intensity of felt moral emotions and be aware of the impacts of using different moral emotional appeals in advertisements.

This study indicated that practitioners should be careful when they employ other-focused or ego-focused emotional appeals in CSR campaigns to reach culturally diverse target consumers. For those consumers from collectivistic cultures combined with high interdependent values, practitioners should consider using the guilt appeal in environmental CSR advertisements. This is because those higher interdependent individuals perceive self in a social way and often feel certain social obligations in relationships (Gardner et al., 1999). Thus, low and moderate levels of guilt emotion elicited by environmental CSR advertisements can exert substantial impacts on higher interdependent consumers’ attitudes and behaviours, for they may be more likely to feel responsible for the harm inflicted upon others regarding environmental damages (Rees et al., 2015). The environmental damage caused by human activities can bring enormous devastation to both nature and human beings. Consequently, higher interdependent consumers were more supportive of guilt-based pro-environmental messages as they were more concerned about the potential threats to the community group and humanity. On the other hand, if the target audiences are independent consumers, the advertisers should consider inducing more guilt emotions. One explanation is that the strong guilt emotion can motivate independent consumers to deploy their attention to mitigating unpleasant feelings. In this case, when individualistic consumers experience higher levels of guilt, they are more likely to realise the violation of moral principles and support the pro-social product to alleviate guilt.

In addition, fashion industry companies might want to focus on boosting consumers’ guilt feelings and increasing their involvement with the social cause while implementing environmental CSR campaigns. This study also contributes to apparel industry knowledge by elucidating the potential impacts of a CSR advertisement with a sustainability message on global consumers’ responses. Finally, this study suggests that fashion industry companies should understand and address different consumers’ needs. So practitioners can use tailored CSR messages to communicate their CSR initiatives to a culturally diverse population effectively.

Limitation and Future Directions

There are some limitations of the current research. First, some researchers may argue that our manipulation is confounded with the effects of varying levels and forms of appeals on the affective responses. Thus, it would be interesting to further examine the effects of distinctive levels and forms of appeals on emotional responses, attitudes, and behavioural intentions. For example, Renner et al. (2013) analysed the impacts of anticipatory and reactive guilt appeals on pro-social behaviours. Further study should analyse whether different levels and types of guilt appeals can produce the same persuasive outcomes in CSR communication.

Second, the subjects in the current study were college students. Although college students were considered to be young generations (birth years of Millennials and Generation Z), subjects in this study may care more about environmental issues versus the general public because they are highly educated. Hence, future research should recruit more diverse consumers and expand the sample sizes in order to increase the statistical power of the experiments.

Although this study provides valuable insights for future cross-cultural comparisons of CSR advertisements eliciting different moral emotions, the results might be contingent on environmental CSR initiatives. Therefore, a future study could consider examining other social initiatives, such as health-related issues related to moral emotions, cultural values, and consumers’ decision-making processes in CSR communication.

Finally, given the increased public concerns about environmental issues, future studies must explore ways to assess the real behavioural effects. Such addition to the dependent measures (environmentally friendly actual behaviour) would contribute to understanding how moral emotions elicited by the CSR advertisements can drive real pro-social behaviours.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Disclaimer

Author’s statement: ‘I confirm that this work is original and has not been published elsewhere, nor is it currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. There was a non-financial interest that has arisen from the direct applications of your research’.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Appendix

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